


i'm on my way home

by spaceburgers



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 18:35:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4273728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceburgers/pseuds/spaceburgers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where Kasamatsu Yukio and Kise Ryouta grow up together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm on my way home

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Я возвращаюсь домой](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5711809) by [Mey_Chan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mey_Chan/pseuds/Mey_Chan)



> happy 7/4 day everybody please keep the kikasa going
> 
> title from on my way home by pentatonix

I.

The first time they meet, Yukio is eight and Ryouta is six.

There’s a new family who’s just moved into the home next door; two girls, both older than Yukio, and a boy who’s younger than him.

He goes to welcome them to the neighborhood along with his parents because Yukio knows it’s the only polite thing to do. Still, the girls are pretty and intimidating – the oldest one is taller than Yukio already, even, and she’s thirteen, practically a teenager – and they scare him, and the boy – well, the boy is two years younger, and when you’re eight years old, two years is a very long time.

He says hello, shyly, lets the adults coo over the collective bunch of children, the three Kise children plus Yukio and his baby brother, and he stares curiously at the mop of blond hair that is Kise Ryouta.

“This is Yukio-kun,” his mother says, and Ryouta smiles brightly.

“Yukio-kun,” he repeats, quietly, more to himself than anything. Yukio hears him anyway.

It is a beginning.

-

They end up in the same elementary school, Ryouta entering the first grade just as Yukio enters the third. He doesn’t even realize they’re in the same school; it’s only when he spies that familiar mop of blond hair in the hallways that he finally realizes that he’ll be seeing a lot more of the kid from next door from now on.

It doesn’t occur him just how often that’s going to be until a few months into the school year, however; it happens by accident, actually. He’s on his way to basketball practice after class when he spots Ryouta – back pressed against the shoe lockers, a taller, older kid grabbing a fistful of his shirt, and—

“Hey!” Yukio calls, even though the kid’s taller than him, probably a fourth or fifth grader. He doesn’t even think about it; there’s just a sudden, instinctive flare of heat in the pit of stomach, and then he’s yelling at the kid, “Pick on someone your own size! He’s a _first_ year, come on!”

Ryouta’s eyes widen as the kid turns to look at Yukio, eyes narrowed.

“Who are you?” he says.

“I—” Yukio pauses. Ryouta’s still standing there, glued to the spot.

They make eye contact.

 _Run_ , Yukio mouths.

Ryouta doesn’t need to be told twice. He dashes off, down the hallway, and the bully whirls around when he realizes what’s just happened.

Yukio takes off too, past the bully, racing after Ryouta, but he couldn’t haven’t gotten _that_ far, he’s just six, he—

He eventually finds him at the end of the hallway, crouched down between a set of lockers, hugging his knees.

“Hey,” Yukio says. Ryouta looks up, startled, but when he realizes who it is he trains his eyes back to the ground.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, quietly. “You don’t have to help me next time.”

Yukio sighs. He glances at his watch, thinks, _I’m late for practice_. Then he walks over to Ryouta, sits down next to him.

“It’s okay,” he says.

There’s silence for a long moment. Yukio looks at Ryouta, trying to gauge a reaction, but he’s still looking at the floor, completely silent.

Finally, Yukio says, “Does this happen often?”

A long pause. Then Ryouta nods, slowly, and Yukio frowns.

“You need to tell a teacher!”

“ _No_ ,” Ryouta says petulantly, his lower lip quivering from the indignation. Yukio’s frown deepens.

“But you have to!”

“Don’t wanna.”

Yukio sighs, wipes his hands on his pants, stands up.

“Fine,” he says, and Ryouta finally looks up, staring at him with wide eyes. “Then how about you join the basketball club with me? There’ll be a whole bunch of older kids there, so you’ll be okay.” _Including me_ , Yukio thinks, but doesn’t say out loud.

Ryouta is silent for a moment, blinking owlishly at Yukio.

“I don’t know how to play basketball,” he says, finally.

“That’s okay,” Yukio replies. He smiles. “I didn’t too, when I first joined.”

Ryouta looks back down at the ground, considering. Finally he stands up, nods at Yukio.

“Okay,” he says. “I guess I can try.”

-

So Yukio brings Ryouta to practice with him. The coach is mad that he’s late at first, but somewhere in between Ryouta’s terrified face and Yukio’s hurried explanation his expression visibly softens.

“Okay,” he says, patting Ryouta’s head. “Let’s see what you can do, kid.”

Ryouta is very eager. He runs fast, and jumps high, and manages to execute a perfect shot right after the coach demonstrates it to him.

The coach stares at Ryouta, mouth agape, and Ryouta just blinks, looking confused.

“Have you always been able to do that?”

“Do what?”

“Shoot.”

Ryouta shakes his head.

The coach is left baffled for a long moment.

“Well,” he says at last. “I guess we can take you in.”

Ryouta beams.

-

He makes Ryouta call him Kasamatsu, like everyone else on the team. He protests at first ( _“But Yukio is Yukio!”_ ) but he relents eventually, which is a huge relief. It’s not that he’s _embarrassed_ that Ryouta’s his neighbour, but – they’re a team now, and there are rules in a team, rules that are meant to be followed, so Yukio starts calling Ryouta by his last name instead and Ryouta starts addressing Yukio with a _senpai_ attached to the back of his name.

But after practice they walk home together – the elementary school’s just a few blocks away from their homes, and the most dangerous thing that has ever happened in their neighborhood was that someone got their bike stolen one time a couple of years ago, so Yukio’s allowed to be Ryouta’s unofficial guardian on their evening trips back home three times a week after basketball practice.

It’s a bit strange, because Ryouta’s so much younger ( _feels_ so much younger), but they’re friends, in a sense.

And so that’s how they spend the next three years – seeing each other on the weekends, playing basketball on the weekdays, walking home together after.

Ryouta is _terrifyingly_ good at basketball. There hasn’t been a single trick he hasn’t managed to not only learn, but to completely make his own.

In short, he’s nothing less than a prodigy.

Which is probably why Yukio doesn’t feel strange hanging out with him, because even though he’s two years younger and still stuck doing addition and subtraction in math, he’s so good at basketball he confounds even the sixth-graders.

The coach takes notice. The coach takes Ryouta under his wing.

So two years after Yukio enters middle school, Ryouta turns to him, tells him that he’ll be going to Teikou Middle School to participate in their prestigious basketball program, and Yukio’s heart immediately sinks right down to the pit of his stomach.

-

II.

Yukio is fourteen and Ryouta is twelve.

They’re friends. They’re good friends, now, so much so that Yukio’s pretty much expected Ryouta to be there next to him all the time. Even after he’d gone over to the middle school, they still managed to take the same route to school every morning, and sometimes their schedules coincided so that Yukio could walk Ryouta back home too, and after school they’d hang out and do their homework together, or play Mario Kart, or play some one-on-one match, but now—

“Yukio? Are you okay?”

Yukio blinks, shakes his head to clear his thoughts. “Yeah, I’m good, I—I was just surprised. Teikou’s… really far from here.”

Ryouta smiles sheepishly, shrugs. “I guess we won’t get to walk to school anymore, huh.”

“Guess not,” Yukio says, quietly. He’s not smiling.

-

Ryouta… becomes someone else in Teikou. Ryouta becomes bigger, bolder. Brighter.

Ryouta gains a bunch of weirdass friends that Yukio doesn’t like. Ryouta gains approximately eight inches in the span of a single year and Yukio almost falls on his face when he sees Ryouta and realizes for the first that he’s actually _taller_ than Yukio now

Ryouta gains a swarm of admirers and a modeling career.

Yukio wishes it was a joke, but it’s true. Ryouta’s sisters mail his picture in to a modeling agency for fun, and then a week later there’s someone at their door with a contract in their hands.

There’s an unpleasant feeling buzzing at the back of his mind for the longest time, but Yukio can’t quite put his finger on it. It’s not that he’s _upset_ about anything, because he and Ryouta are still friends, they still see each other practically everyday, but—

But now the stories that Ryouta tells are about a world that’s completely out of Yukio’s reach, Yukio in his plain black _gakuran_ and Ryouta in the crisp white and blue uniform of a private school, Ryouta in the basketball team that’s been taking Japan by storm, Ryouta meeting new people, famous people, talented people.

People who aren’t Yukio.

He only realizes it in his first year of high school, Ryouta’s second year of middle school, when Ryouta gets a girlfriend for the first time and starts telling Yukio all about his first date and he realizes, suddenly, abruptly, that he might possibly have a crush on Kise Ryouta.

The realization almost knocks the wind right out of him, but as he sits there, looking at the profile of Ryouta’s face, at that blond hair now cut fashionably short and the new piercing that sits on his left earlobe and his eyes, his _eyes_ , the one thing that has stayed the same throughout all these years ever since they were eight and six years old—

All of a sudden everything just makes sense. That buzzing irritation. That unsettling feeling.

The way his heart’s clenched tight in his chest.

“Shit,” he says, out loud.

Ryouta stops talking, gives him a strange look instead.

“Yukio?”

“Sorry, I just—suddenly remembered. I have a—a homework assignment that I need to finish right away.” That’s a blatant lie, a flimsy lie, but it’s all he has. He stands up abruptly, casts Ryouta a quick smile. “I’ll talk to you later.”

He doesn’t look back as he leaves. All he can think is: _oh, fuck._

-

Ryouta isn’t happy in Teikou. This, Yukio knows without needing Ryouta to tell him directly. He can tell from the dark circles that have gradually taken root under Ryouta’s eyes, from the tired smile he gives whenever Yukio asks if he’s going for basketball practice, from the way Ryouta’s eyes don’t quite light up anymore.

“That’s not true,” Ryouta says, the one time Yukio asks him about it. “I love my team! I love Kurokocchi and Aominecchi and everyone—I love winning all the time.”

Still, the grin doesn’t quite meet his eyes even as he speaks. Yukio doesn’t pursue it.

Instead he just says, quietly, “I miss being on the same team as you,” and Ryouta stills.

“Maybe we can do that again, one day,” Ryouta says, laughing, and Yukio doesn’t say anything in return.

-

III.

Yukio is seventeen and Ryouta is fifteen.

“I’m going to Kaijou,” Ryouta says one day, and Yukio drops everything he’s holding.

He’s tutoring Ryouta, because his grades are terrible and he’s going to be graduating middle school soon so he needs to get his head out of his ass long enough to pass his exams for that to happen, and somehow it has become Yukio’s responsibility to make sure Ryouta manages to successfully make the transition from Teikou to—whatever high school he chooses.

Which, apparently, happens to be Kaijou.

“Why?” Yukio says, at last, which is not what he means to say at all.

“Because it’s a good school?” Ryouta answers, blinking owlishly at Yukio. “I like the uniform? It has a great basketball team with a great captain-to-be?”

“I’m not—”

“Sure, sure,” Ryouta says, but he’s smiling. He’s smiling so broadly that it makes Yukio’s chest ache a little just looking at him. “Whatever you say, senpai.”

“Don’t call me that,” Yukio interjects. He feels his face heating up, which is definitely a bad sign. But Ryouta just laughs.

“Don’t be embarrassed, _senpai_ ,” he says, grinning. “It’ll be just like the good old days again.”

“You mean elementary school, when I had to save your ass from some oversized fifth-grader?” Yukio snorts. Ryouta doesn’t even look embarrassed. He just smiles, softly, genuinely.

A gentle ache begins to bloom in Yukio’s chest.

“Yeah,” Ryouta says, smiling. “Yeah, just like that.”

-

Yukio has watched all of Ryouta’s Teikou matches. Every single one of them. Some live, some on tapes along with the rest of the third-years, who sit in a circle in their clubroom, watching pensively as the Teikou team performs yet another impossible shot that somehow manages to land perfectly.

“It’s going to be a hell of a year,” Kobori says, quietly.

Yukio doesn’t say anything, just continues watching Ryouta on the tapes; Ryouta’s expression is dead serious the entire time.

-

The Ryouta that practically flounces his way into the gym on the first official practice of the year is very different from the Ryouta on the tapes. This Ryouta is smiling, laughing, effortlessly smooth – too much like the Ryouta that Yukio has known for almost ten years now.

It makes Yukio lean in without thinking, ruffling his hair a little too hard. “Get back to your drills, brat,” he says, and Ryouta’s eyes widen in surprise for a brief moment before he throws his head back and _laughs_ , actually laughs out loud.

“Yes, captain,” he says, sniggering the whole time, and then he’s running off to join the rest of the first years.

Yukio just stares, confused.

-

He takes Ryouta out for dinner after their first practice, goes to the ramen place that’s barely a ten minute walk away from their homes.

“Was that okay?” Yukio asks, nervous, and Ryouta smiles brightly, gives Yukio a thumbs-up over his steaming bowl of ramen.

“Look, I’m being serious over here,” Yukio begins, eyebrows furrowed, but Ryouta just shakes his head and sets his chopsticks down.

“I’m being serious too,” he says, even though there’s still food in his mouth. “You were great! Really!”

“Well obviously, there’s no way I’m going to compare to Teikou-style captaincy but—”

“Senpai.”

Yukio stops talking. He just stares at Ryouta, stares and stares at him as he grins.

“I told you not to call me that,” he says, at last, and Ryouta laughs.

“But you _are_ my senpai now! And I’m supposed to respect that, right?”

“Not—like this,” Yukio says, feeling faintly embarrassed. Ryouta smiles.

“I know,” he says. “You’re my captain _and_ my friend at the same time, so maybe I’m a little biased.” He pauses, gets another spoonful of soup. “But—look, things were really different at Teikou, okay? But I like it here. I like it at Kaijou. _Really_.”

Yukio turns away, because if he looks at Ryouta’s painfully earnest expression any longer he’s probably going to explode. Instead he just stares down at his bowl of half-eaten ramen. Suddenly, he’s not quite hungry anymore.

“Why were you laughing, just now, when you called me captain?” he says.

Ryouta grins. “Because I liked saying it.”

Yukio chances a peek at him. He’s smiling, smiling really hard in a way Yukio hasn’t seen in a while. He quashes the swooping sensation in his gut, shoves Ryouta away half-heartedly.

“Brat,” he mutters.

“I love you too, senpai.”

Yukio almost drops his chopsticks. He hopes Ryouta doesn’t notice the way his face is suddenly on fire.

-

Yukio consciously tries not to treat Ryouta any different, but it’s hard. It’s not just the fact that he finds himself staring at Ryouta whenever he’s not paying attention, but also that he’s so ridiculously talented, it’s almost disgusting to watch him.

He’s on a completely different league from the first years, the second years, even most of the third years. The coach has him playing first-string already, which is a source of much resentment among the second-string third years, but even then they can’t quite say much in the face of the unstoppable force that is Kise Ryouta.

Still, Yukio tries his best to treat Ryouta just as how he could treat any other first year, never mind the fact that none of the first years can even hold a candle to Ryouta, never mind the fact that his crush on Ryouta is reaching epic uncontrollable proportions.

But he tries, he swears to god he tries. And it’s apparently not enough, as he discovers one day before practice, when Moriyama corners him and says, coyly, “So… you and Kise and pretty close.”

“Well, yeah,” Yukio says, looking surprised. “We grew up together.”

Moriyama gives Yukio a meaningful look.

“Yeah, but like… _really_ close.”

“I don't follow,” Yukio deadpans.

“Like… you know. The kind of closeness one would expect from a couple— _OW_ , don’t hit me, please, I’m sorry—”

Yukio leaves Moriyama doubled over in pain as he stalks back to the gym to set up for practice.

-

Except he finds himself sitting in the locker room, spaced out. His palms are sweaty. Has he always been _that_ obvious? Does everyone know? Or just Moriyama? Because Moriyama, that bastard, he notices _everything_ , so—

“Kasamatsu-senpai? Are you okay?”

Yukio looks up, and of course it’s Ryouta, standing in front of him with his gym clothes clutched in his hand.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just didn’t get a lot sleep last night,” he lies effortlessly, and Ryouta makes a sympathetic noise.

“Well, don’t push yourself too hard then,” he says. Yukio looks at him, cracks a crooked smile.

“No,” he agrees, “I’m too busy pushing _you_ to work harder.”

Ryouta pouts, comically exaggerated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, senpai, I’m clearly the most hardworking person on the whole team.”

“Clearly,” Yukio agrees, only he’s not being sarcastic.

Has he always been this way? Has he always thought of Ryouta this way?

“Well,” he says, getting up from the bench. “Go get changed, I’ll see you on the court.”

“Yes, sir.” Ryouta grins, doing a little mock salute.

He’s gorgeous. He’s so gorgeous it makes Yukio’s chest ache. The realization hits him hard, leaves him almost breathless– has it always been like this? When did it start? When did it get _this_ bad?

Yukio takes off down the court, doing a quick lap before the rest of the team assembles, hoping it’ll help clear his thoughts.

(It doesn’t.)

-

They lose the Interhighs. They lose the Winter Cup.

Both times Yukio holds Ryouta, lets him cry into the crook of his shoulder, wipes Ryouta’s tears and snot away, rubs his back until the sobs gradually ease into quiet hiccups.

The first time Yukio doesn’t let Ryouta see him when he cries.

The second time Yukio doesn’t cry. He just puts his arm around Ryouta’s shoulder, lets Ryouta lean against him, thinks about Ryouta’s injured leg, then doesn’t think at all.

The third years leave the club. There’s a party, a party where one of third-years sneaks in some beer, and Yukio drinks and eats and laughs and doesn’t think about how he took the captaincy to win and ended up not fulfilling that promise at all.

Ryouta is there; Ryouta is sitting next to him, their thighs pressed together on the couch. Ryouta is mildly buzzed, and it makes him laugh a little too loudly, makes him a little more touchy-feely, draping his arms over Yukio and mumbling something Yukio can’t quite hear over the music.

He puts his hand on Ryouta’s back, doesn’t think about how he’s never going to have basketball practice with Ryouta ever again.

-

IV.

It’s graduation day.

It’s like the year passed in the blink of an eye, with matches and competitions and tests, and now he’s here, sitting in an auditorium among a sea of similarly uniformed students, looking somber with their heads bowed as their principal makes some inane speech about the future.

They rise to the school song for the last time, surrounded by their classmates for the past three, six, maybe even twelve years.

Then it’s over.

Yukio stumbles out of the auditorium into the bright sunlight. Moriyama manages to spot him, somehow, grabs a quick selfie with him, punches him lightly on the arm and Yukio tries to pretend he doesn’t notice how Moriyama’s eyes are rimmed with red. Then there’s Kobori, and the rest of the third-years, and there are lots of photos, and Yukio wonders if this is the last time he’s going to be seeing most of them.

Then suddenly the second-years are here too, and Nakamura, the new captain, shakes Yukio’s hand awkwardly, tries to say something poetic but gets drowned out by Hayakawa’s yelling.

Then they’re joined by the first-years. And there’s Ryouta.

He’s smiling, teary-eyed.

They joke and banter and laugh, and they play one final match in the gym just for old-time’s sake. Ryouta sits out, because his ankle is still healing, but every time Yukio glances at him he’s smiling, and it makes him fumble with the ball in a way he never would have let himself do, before.

But he’s not captain anymore, and he’s not part of the team anymore, so he just lets Moriyama’s laughter wash over him, teases him back about how he’d been crying during the ceremony, and just like that, Yukio feels right at home again.

But then the sun is setting, and everyone’s packing up to go.

And then it’s just Yukio and Ryouta now, taking the familiar route home together.

“It’s gonna be weird not seeing you during practice,” Ryouta notes, his voice light. Yukio looks at him, purses his lips.

“You’ll be fine,” Yukio mutters in response, sticking his hands into his pockets. “Nakamura’s going to be a great captain.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Suddenly Ryouta stops in his tracks. Yukio pauses, turns to him.

“What’s wrong?”

They’re standing on the side of the road. The sun’s gone down by now, and it’s dark. There are barely any cars on the road, just the occasional flash of headlights as the cars drive past them.

Ryouta’s looking at something in the distance, seemingly lost in thought.

“Ryouta?”

“Yukio,” Ryouta says, abruptly. He turns to Yukio, his eyes deadly serious. Yukio’s heart picks up in his chest, suddenly nervous.

“Don’t hate me for this, okay?” Ryouta mumbles, and before Yukio can asks what he’s talking about, Ryouta’s leaning in, one trembling hand clamped onto Yukio’s shoulder, and then he’s kissing him, just the gentle brush of lips against lips.

Still, it makes Yukio feel like his entire being’s been set on fire.

Ryouta pulls away. Even in the darkness of the evening Yukio can see how red his face in, can still make out the wideness of his eyes and the anxious twist to his lips.

“Sorry,” Ryouta says. “I just—”

“Don’t apologize,” Yukio says, and then he pulls Ryouta in for a hug.

It’s awkward, because Ryouta’s taller than him, and he’s frozen stiff so it feels more like Yukio’s reaching up to hug a tree more than anything.

But then something breaks, and Ryouta’s leaning down, wrapping his arms around Yukio’s back and crushing him against his chest.

He’s crying, Yukio realizes. There are tears, warm and wet against his shoulder, and Yukio just sighs, pulls Ryouta down so his head’s resting on Yukio’s shoulder. He has to tip-toe a little to make it work, but Ryouta’s clinging so tightly onto his shirt than he can’t bear to say anything about it, just rubs Ryouta’s back in a way that makes him think of locker rooms in sports stadiums all over again.

“Hey,” he says, but he’s smiling, just a little, he can’t help it— “Why are you crying?”

“I’m sorry,” Ryouta gets out, in between sobs, and Yukio runs his fingers through Ryouta’s hair. “I’m _sorry_ for waiting this long, if I’d known— If I’d known I would’ve—”

“Then isn’t it kind of my fault too?” Yukio’s smiling now, full out smiling, even as Ryouta sobs into his uniform blazer.

“But—” Ryouta sniffles loudly. “But—we could’ve had so much time, and now you’re _leaving_ for college, and I—”

“Not leaving yet, freshman,” Yukio says. “Still have a few months.”

“That’s too short!” Ryouta whines, finally looking up. His eyes are red, and there’s tears and snot everywhere. His hair is a mess. He’s never been more beautiful.

“Well,” Yukio says, reaches out to cup Ryouta’s cheek, carefully thumbs away the tears there. “We’ve had the past ten years already, haven’t we?”

Ryouta doesn't say anything for a long time. Yukio just holds onto him, wipes away his tears until his face is dry again.

Finally, Ryouta looks at Yukio, smiles shyly, says, “So does that mean I can kiss you again?”

“Yeah,” Yukio says, grinning, grinning so hard his cheeks are starting to ache. “Yeah, I guess so.”

 

 


End file.
